


Near as Neighbours

by orbis_terrarum



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Fur Trade History, Hetalia Kink Meme, Independence Movements, Log Cabins, M/M, More Bitter Than Sweet, Sale of Alaska, Snow, snowball fights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 23:38:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orbis_terrarum/pseuds/orbis_terrarum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Russia and Canada are friends, of a kind. They speak seldom to one another, but when they do speak, they share the steady camaraderie of the hinterland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Near as Neighbours

atthew lives in a log cabin high upon a mountain; he keeps the chinks between the logs plastered up so that he is snug and warm, even when the winter grows chill. To the south and east, there are long, rolling plains between him and Alfred; to the west, there is a ridge of rough hills between him and Ivan. That distance comforts him--it is a pleasant isolation, a retreat rather than an exile. When the pressures of the city begin to be too much to bear, and Alfred is growing restive in New York, Matthew smiles and makes his excuses and departs for his cabin in the mountains.

He enjoys the simple work of making a living. In a clear river, he can catch fish for himself, and he knows how to scale and bone them and then fry them for dinner; in the mountains, he knows which berries are good to eat and which to leave alone. His First Peoples taught the French to live upon the hard land, many years ago, and he has never forgotten the lesson. Even when the wars came, and the First Peoples scattered to the wind and the Acadians were forced south to become Cajuns--

\--but he doesn't dwell on it. He has forgiven them all for it, Alfred and Arthur and Francis. He has forgiven them everything, and yet sometimes their company is simply more than he can bear. Matthew walks the snow-crusted hillsides in a thick coat, chafing at his bare neck absently as he slips between the trees. His gloves are warm, and lined with rabbit fur.

He is content, like this. He is sure that he can be sufficient by himself, warm in his coat and isolated in the chill north, slowly trudging westward to see new lands and meet new people (if there are any, and there never are).

At times, Matthew will see what he takes for a deer at first--but the movement is all wrong, the body shape is all wrong; that fawn-colored shape is Ivan, one hillside over, a burly figure in a heavy coat and an otter-fur cap. The otter brought Ivan across the waves at first, he knows; something in him was captivated by the sleek pelts, the smooth texture of the fur. Those creatures impressed Ivan at first as a resource, and only later did he learn to love their playfulness and cunning. "They pound rocks on their chests," he had told Matthew once, during one of their infrequent conversations. "They want to find food, and so they smash hard shells between rocks--is it not wonderful? They are like little men, with tools scattered over the shore!"

Lately, Ivan has found a less endearing resource to hunt. When Matthew sees him across the valley, he is pulling his cap back on and shouldering his pickaxe, philosophical at the prospect of discovering gold in this chill waste. "I may find it, and I may not; how foolish I will feel if someone else finds it!" he cries, when Matthew laughs at his stubbornness.

They are friends, of a kind. They speak seldom to one another, but when they do speak, they share the steady camaraderie of the hinterland.

Sometimes, when Ivan has spent more time mining than hunting, he will show up at Matthew's door with his cheeks burned red by the wind and his hands jammed into mittens which are in turn sheepishly jammed into pockets. "Might I ...?" he asks, and the question is _come in_ and _share your hearth_ and _have a meal_ all at once--but he is too proud, too proud to say any of it. "Might I?" suffices, and Matthew shares hearth and provender with quiet tact.

They eat fry bread with honey and maple syrup on it, jerked venison, fish soup made in the Russian way; Ivan is unfailingly willing to help with the cooking of dinner and the brewing of tea. "I miss vodka," he says; "I miss beer," Matthew agrees. They sip their tea companionably, while the snow begins to pile up outside.

Twice or thrice, when the hour has grown late and the fire has begun to burn low, Matthew tactfully refuses to let Ivan walk home in the thick snow. "Stay here," he begs, a little show for Ivan's pride. "I could use the warmth tonight." Ivan always agrees, and they lie snuggled in each other's arms beneath a thick, rough blanket and mismatched calico sheets. It suffices; they acquiesce not with bombast, as Alfred and Arthur acquiesce to one another, but with a mutual understanding that they must not get lost in the cold. It requires few words.

There are, too, little favors that they do for one another, kindnesses done in spite of the wide valley that lies between them. In the warmth of early autumn, when Matthew goes to cut wood against the first frost, he finds a pile of wood already cut for him, with a keg of fine beer lying beside it. There is a note atop the pile, but the last rain has made the ink smudge, and anyway it was written in Cyrillic; he nonetheless smiles to see it, and the next day there are fish waiting in a bucket by Ivan's door. It is poor repayment, but it pleases him that he is independent enough to give it.

When the snow comes again, they wave to one another across the valley. It feels as though they are closer to one another, now, although Matthew cannot think that their borders have moved.

It is in his comfort, his complacency, that Matthew misses the attack being prepared for him.

The snowball strikes his bare neck, hard and sharp and cold against the skin. He cries out, because he has never been shot and he thinks that this is what being shot feels like--but then he hears Ivan laughing at him, and his hand goes to his neck and feels the damp snow gathered there. Matthew whirls, and there Ivan stands with his shoulder braced against a snow-capped pine. "You cheat!" he cries, ducking at once to gather up snow and fling it at the Russian. Ivan doesn't even try to dodge, letting the snowball strike his chest and slide down his coat. "Cheat--!" he laughs, and then he is is stooping for more snow, and there are snowballs whizzing back and forth between them, laughter shaking the snow from the pines all around. Either Matthew tackles Ivan to the snow, or they stumble into one another; somehow, they finish wrestling upon the ground, their hands clenching on each other's shoulders and their hair matted with hard lumps of snow.

"Cheat," says Ivan, low and considering, as he sits on Matthew's stomach and presses his shoulders to the ground. "You're a cheat," Matthew agrees breathlessly. "You should play more nicely!"

"Are we playing?" Ivan asks. Very slowly, almost tenderly, he brings a hand to Matthew's cheek. The touch is so cold that it aches, gloved hand on bare skin; Matthew looks up to meet Ivan's bright eyes. The Russian's cheeks are bright red, his scarf hanging loose and useless about his shoulders.

His breath catches. He has never thought before that his neighbour is strikingly, sparsely beautiful.

Ivan twines Matthew's hair about his finger, making it coil there into a tight little ringlet, snow-dampened and darkened. "Are we playing?" he asks again, this time low and intimate.

Matthew can't speak. He only reaches up with his free hand, to press his fingertips against Ivan's cheek. If Ivan thinks the touch cold, he doesn't flinch from it; he only leans in, close enough that they are sharing warmth and breath.

The kiss is gentle, exploratory; this tenderness is unknown territory for both of them, and Matthew only hesitantly parts his lips to welcome Ivan's tongue. There is no conquest in this--neither of them has enough claim to cry 'invasion.'

It is slow and quiet and perfect.

"I should go home," whispers Matthew, when they break; "Come home with me," says Ivan softly. "I want you to join me in my home."

If he had wanted to refuse that offer (and he scarcely dreams of refusing the offer), the pleading look in Ivan's eyes convinces him. "If ... if you want it," he answers, with a tiny smile. "If you let me up--"

"Oh!" Ivan heaves himself to his feet, offering Matthew his hands. They embrace warmly under the high trees, secure and separate in their long coats and thick gloves; Ivan's scarf is heavy with snow. "Your neck must be cold," says Matthew, and he leans in to kiss the chill skin.

He can feel a protest well up and subside in Ivan's throat, a rumble against his lips. The Russian's fingers are clenching at his waist, digging into the skin even through layers of clothing--he is trembling as Matthew gently licks the skin beneath his jaw, nips the lobe of his ear.

"My neck might be cold," Ivan allow at last, and his voice is rough. "And my hands are cold ..."

Matthew closes his narrow fingers around Ivan's broad, gloved hand and raises it to his lips, fastening his teeth in the heavy leather and tugging the glove free. He presses his lips to Ivan's palm; cool, chapped flesh against warm and callused skin. It is his turn to tremble at how warm, how _alive_ Ivan is beneath his thick clothing. "Are you cold?" asks Ivan, meeting his eyes. Matthew's spectacles are flecked with melted snow, and yet he has never seen Ivan so clearly. "Is a part of you ... cold?"

"All of me is cold," he whispers, although he feels suffused with heat. "Please, kiss all of me--all of me is so cold--"

Slowly, with infinite gentleness, Ivan lowers him once again to the snow. The prospect is terrifying, absurd; he is thinking of frostbitten fingers and toes lopped off by cold, hands withered and ears numbed--but the soft snow yields under his back, and Ivan leans in to cover him, and he locks his gloved hands together at the small of Ivan's back to keep him close. The Russian's bare fingers are almost painfully warm against his chilled cheek.

"I'll kiss you everywhere," he says, lips closing on the lobe of Matthew's ear and teeth barely scraping the skin. "I'll kiss you everywhere--" and his mouth is hot and wet on Matthew's Adam's apple.

Clumsy, gloved fingers are undoing buttons, baring fractions of skin at a time, so that Ivan can kiss the hollow of his chest. Bare fingers close the buttons again behind the path of Ivan's lips, shutting away flesh as soon as it quickens and blushes. Matthew is shivering, quaking with the effort of lying still. He thinks that it would be easy simply to whisper, _let's go to your house_ ; easy to seize Ivan by the hair and drag their lips together--this slow lovemaking is torture. "Please," he murmurs, as his hands fall to his sides.

"I want to please," answers Ivan, undoing Matthew's thick woolen trousers and baring him to the electric winter air.

He has only a fraction of a second to feel the deepest, most visceral cold of his life--and then Ivan's lips are on him, surrounding him, closing him in slick warmth like summer. It feels like being drawn out of himself, pulled into a separate existence that is broader and more perfect than his frail body can bear. The Russian's tongue traces the soft pulse of veins, the thin folds of skin; his teeth only barely scrape the underside of Matthew's cock.

His cry shakes the snow from the trees.

When it is over, they lie quietly entwined in the snow, closed warm in their clothing. "When we get home," says Matthew, his face buried against Ivan's shoulder, "I want you to ..."

"I will," Ivan promises.

At length, they stand together and make their way arm in arm over the mountains, to the cabin nestled against the hillside.

They spend the afternoon in making love, slowly and sweetly in the warmth of the cabin. They trace each other's limbs with fingertips and kisses, murmuring _beautiful_ against every inch of skin; they share more soft words in these scant hours than they have given one another in their years as neighbours. "I want you to ..." whispers Matthew, his legs about Ivan's waist and Ivan's mouth latched onto his neck--"I will," says Ivan, and he presses Matthew to the bed and enters him slow and warm and painful-wonderful.

The shabby quilts are as soft as snow around them. The light from the fire is warm and low.

They share tea from Ivan's samovar, when they can stir themselves from the bed; it is not the fine beer that Matthew received as a gift, and yet the company is a kind of gift in its own right. They sit curled comfortably on the bed, Matthew's back against Ivan's chest, the quilt draped loosely around Ivan's shoulders.

"I am so happy," says Matthew, when the tea is low in his cup and he has begun to feel pleasantly drowsy. "Say that we can ... that we can meet again, like this?"

When Ivan's silence stretches on, Matthew feels a sudden chill.

At length, the Russian shifts and leans against the wall, taking the quilt with him. "There is no gold here, no good iron, and even the otters have moved on ... there is nothing," he says into his teacup. "I work and work in the snow, and my hands get rough and I spend my money for nothing. I feel like a prisoner here--this place is worse than Siberia."

"But this is a good country!" Matthew says hastily. "We have been good neighbours to each other--I am at peace here." The last statement is the most true. "Can you not be at peace here, too? Even if there is no gold, no fur--"

"I have sold this house to Alfred," Ivan answers. "Soon he will come to make plans and change the place to suit his needs ... I made very little from the sale, but at least I will not be selling myself daily to live in this wasteland."

"So this is a wasteland for you." Matthew stands, still naked and aching, hair damp with sweat and snowmelt. He puts his teacup down upon the table, the tea unfinished, and he begins to dress. He can't bring himself to look up and watch Ivan's face fall.

"I am not running from you!" the Russian cries, standing all at once, his tea sloshing over the quilts. "This has nothing to do with you--only with this land. It is not _Russia_. It isn't home ..."

"It is _my_ home. And now there will be Americans next to my cabin, making noise and killing bears, ripping the land apart for the gold that you couldn't find ... I thought you cared about me, even a little." His trousers are fastened, his stockings are on; his shirt won't fasten because it's inside out--

"I do care about you," says Ivan, but he doesn't hold out his hand, and he sits back down on the bed. Matthew straightens his shirt and buttons it neatly, before lugging on his boots and his jacket and his coat.

He pauses in the doorway, aware that he is perilously close to tears. "Remember this day," he says softly. "One day, you'll want to be close to me again--you'll do everything you can to be close to me again--and I'll tell you that I won't have you as my neighbour."

A breath of chill air blows through the cabin as he departs.

He is crying, but as he cries, Matthew is resolving to himself that he will be all right. The high pines are the same as they were before; the fish will still gather beneath the hole in the ice on the lake; in the summer there will be honey and berries and fat bears playing in the valleys.

He can stand to be alone. After all, that was why he came here.


End file.
